The Trial of Queen Caroline

[This document is annotation to the author's transcription of Charles Dickens's "The Lost Arctic Voyagers" (1854).]

The "trial of Queen Caroline" alludes to the infamous trial following the bogus adultery charge leveled by King George IV of Great Britain at his wife, Caroline of Brunswick (1768-1821), when she refused her estranged husband's offer of £50,000to renounce her title and live abroad. The charges against her were dropped in 1820 thanks a spirited defence by Lord Brougham and the sympathy of the British public. From 1814 until 1820 she lived in Italy.